Finding righteous currents in turbulent times

Archive for the tag “Iran”

Jodi Miller reports, “In an interview with NBC News, Iran’s foreign minister renewed his country’s vow to annihilate Israel. To which President Obama said, ‘Let’s make a deal.” In this edition of NewsBusted, Miller also places the spotlight on Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Al Sharpton, Eric Holder and Apple.

A member of a fringe ultra-Orthodox Jewish group has been charged with trying to betray Israel to Iran. The suspect was accused of traveling to Berlin in 2011 and offered to act as a spy against his country to Iranian embassy officials. Court documents describe him as a male Israeli citizen in his 40s and a member of the radical Neturei Karta faction, which believes a Jewish state should exist only after the Messiah comes.

Sparks fly in this debate on the Syrian civil war, pitting investigative journalist and blogger Lee Kaplan against Ken O’Keefe, the activist and former Marine who led the human shield action to Iraq in 2002. Rather than discuss Syria, the two exchanged a wild series of accusations and below-the-belt insults. Iran’s propaganda arm, Press TV, organized the debate, and its announcer appeared to provide cover to O’Keefe. In turn, he has been a frequent apologist for the Iranian mullahs, peddling the outlandish notion that 9-11 was an inside hit job conducted by the Israeli spy agency Mossad.

New reports on Iranian’s president-elect Hasan Rouhani have cast doubt on the “moderate” label he has been given by much of the international media. The London based pan-Arab daily newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat has revealed that Rouhani’s son committed suicide over his father’s close ties to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The US State Department has released a report indicating that terrorism sponsored by Iran rose sharply last year. The report in particular points to attacks suspected of being carried out by Lebanese-based militant group Hezbollah, which receives support and funding from Tehran.

Iranian presidential candidate and current defense minister Ahmad Vahidi toured a military compound containing new long-range missile launchers. The missile launchers, forming part of the Persian state’s program for military self-sufficiency, are beinged housed at an undisclosed location within Iran.

With Iran’s presidential elections set for June 14, Mohammad Yazdi, a clerical member of the Guardian Council — Iran’s constitutional watchdog — has said the constitution rules out women being presidential candidates. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the current, two-term president of Iran, also is forbidden to run for a third term, but is advancing the candidacy of one of his aides.

Two members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have been found guilty of plotting to attack Israeli and American targets in Kenya. Iranian nationals Ahmad Abolfathi Mohammad and Sayed Mansour Mousavi were picked up by Kenyan police last year and found to have 15 kilograms of deadly explosives and plans to cause harm.

Two men have been arrested and charged with plotting a terror attack against a Canadian passenger train with support from al-Qaeda elements inside Iran. Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, and Raed Jaser, 35, who live in Montreal and Toronto, were planning to derail a passenger train in Toronto.